Franco Morbidelli dominated third practice for the Aragon Grand Prix, the Italian slotting his Yamaha nearly-half-a-second up on Cal Crutchlow.
The Petronas SRT man left it late to improve his best time from yesterday, banging in the only sub-1:47 laptime of 1:47.859 in the closing seconds.
LCR Honda’s Crutchlow slotted in behind in the session standings-lifting him up to fourth in the combined standings as a result-meaning the Brit moves straight into the pole shootout on Saturday afternoon.
Pol Espargaro managed the third fastest effort for KTM-leaving him fifth in combined-while Joan Mir posted an impressive fourth quickest tour for Suzuki, allowing him to also progress directly to Q2.
Alex Marquez meanwhile secured his first graduation to Q2 in his rookie MotoGP campaign with the fifth fastest time in FP3, just ahead of ’21 team-mate Takaaki Nakagami-making it three Honda’s in the ten direct-to-Q2 entries.
Alex Rins was seventh fastest on the second Suzuki ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro as the pairing made the pole shootout, while KTM duo Miguel Oliveira and Brad Binder completed the top ten-though their respective best times were not enough to lift them into direct Q2 berth’s.
Both Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo’s best times from Friday were enough to keep them first and third overall respectively, though championship leader Quartararo could be in doubt for qualifying after suffering a nasty crash in the final part of the session.
Braking on the curbing for at Turn 14, the Frenchman’s Yamaha tucked from underneath him initially but quickly regained grip-throwing him into the air and swiftly resulting in a hard impact with the ground on landing.
He looked visually injured shortly following the incident, and was taken to the medical centre for a check-up.
Andrea Dovizioso was another to suffer a spill, the factory Ducati pilot dropping his Desmosedici as he tipped into Turn 6.
His crash was fortunately fairly minor, and he returned to set a time good enough for 13th overall-worryingly for the Italian manufacturer its highest placed representative-with one last push lap on his spare machine.
Johann Zarco followed just 0.006 behind on his Avintia-run GP19 Ducati, while Pramac pairing Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller ended FP3 15th and 17th in the combined standings.
French GP victor Danilo Petrucci could only manage 18th overall on the second factory Ducati.
